Shixx
12-15-2009, 08:48 AM
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/7067/demonssoulsintrotitledo.jpg
Intro-
Every now and then, a game comes along where you feel like the developers tried to make sure everyone could beat it and feel good about themselves because they completed it. A game where the journey to the end was not one filled with challenge and tense moments, but rather with easy gameplay that was accessible to everyone. Demon’s Souls is NOT that game.
Every now and then, a game comes along that brutally kicks your ass, assaults you relentlessly, and forgoes a lot of the modern devices of video games that some claim make them easier. Demon’s Souls IS that game.
Graphics-
The game is fairly good looking, albeit it’s not a pretty game. It’s dark, filed with lots of gray and brown, and does not generally feel very uplifting at all. The game runs off of the Havoc Engine, which provides solid physics (albeit, sometimes a little weird. Try walking into a corpse, they’ll flail all over the place). Levels feature lots of destructible items, although they usually feel slapped on, as they rarely offer tactical or logistical advantage.
The rest of the graphics are solid but unspectacular; frame rate is smooth, animations are solid, and there is nothing wrong with them, they just don’t necessarily wow you.
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/3032/exprimevaldemongraphics.png
Audio-
The soundtrack is rather subtle in scale as well, often foregoing music entirely for simple sound effects. While music generally does a good job ramping up the excitement of boss fights, throughout much of each level you will find that there is no music to be heard. But that’s ok, because, in a way, it helps create this taut sense of loneliness, and the ghastly sounds of howling rabid dogs down the dark hallway you are making your way through or your feet clanking against a stone corridor are all well done and add to the atmosphere. Sadly, the voice acting in this game feels uninspired for the most part, although, luckily for us, there isn’t much of it to go around. Part of that is because there isn’t much story either; greedy king abuses soul power to awaken demons. That’s it. It’s typical fantasy fare.
Gameplay-
As labeled, Demon’s Souls is an action-RPG, and, surprisingly, has a decidedly “western” feel to it. Played from a third-person perspective in real time, Demon’s Souls is a dark, gritty, no-holds barred adventure of a game.
And when I say dark, I mean dark. Before you even begin gameplay, the game literally asks you to turn the brightness setting way down. I did this at first, but found that the game got too dark for me, and I was fumbling around a bit too much. Use discretion; it’s no fun to pass some lever you were supposed to pull or stumble off a cliff to your death because you couldn’t see (more on death later). I ended up setting the brightness back to it’s default setting, the game is plenty dark.
Enemies themselves range from generic to rather nightmarish in appearance. There are some pretty imaginative bosses to fight, some of them huge in scale (think Shadow of Colossus). They all add to the somewhat “gothic” feel of the game, and the dark atmosphere.
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/2171/demonssoulsbosstongue.jpg
The brief tutorial does an okay job of introducing you to the most vital of controls, R1 is right hand use (like swing your weapon), R2 is heavy swing of said item, R3 is enemy lock-on, square is use item, circle is dash, or, with analog input, a roll, and triangle allows you to switch around how you wield your weapon between one or two hands. The two left triggers provide wielding your left handed item (L1), and parrying (L2). The right stick grants you power over the camera, allowing you to move it as you please, and the control pad toggles through items and weapons. While the main gist of combat feels very responsive and fluid, I have some issues. You can only scroll through items in one order, and you can have five equipped at a time. For instance, if “sticky white stuff” (lol, an actual item) is your fifth item, you must scroll using the control pad to it. If you accidentally pass it, you must go all the way through your items again. While this sounds rather small in scale, you’ll quickly learn that in this game, every second counts. Otherwise though, you’ll find the controls are simple to grasp. Sadly, the tutorial does skip over some of them, most notably the message system (more on this later).
There are ten classes in Demon’s Souls to play as, and they all play relatively differently. They’re generally the class archetypes we come to expect from this genre; knight, barbarian, thief, etc. Stats are relatively familiar too, featuring things like Strength (which can increase damage, for instance), and Luck (which can increase item drop rates), among others. Interestingly enough, any class can use any combination of weapons, as long as you have the right stats, and some of the weapons vary pretty wildly in terms of how they play. This makes gameplay a constantly evolving ordeal. You can go big and slow, quick and agile, whatever you want, which is good, because you may want to mix up your style if you find yourself stuck.
Your hit points are suitably represented by a HP bar. There is also a MP bar for magic and miracles, which are spells you can use during the game. Certain stats determine how many you can know at once. There is also a stamina bar, which depletes when running, blocking, rolling, or attacking. It’s important to keep some stamina in the tank at all times, if it gets empty, you can no longer successfully block or use heavy attacks. It does recharge quickly. Items you carry also add to your overall weight, the limit of which is determined by your Strength. The game, fortunately, includes a bank of sorts at the Nexus for items, and it has unlimited space.
Protip: Keep your shield up at all times. You never know what may be lurking around the corner
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/2429/demonssoulsshieldup.jpg
It’s hard to compare Demon’s Souls to any game out there, it has some similarities to Monster Hunter, without the over-exaggeration of combat, and at times also bares some ties to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. It’s combat oriented; don’t expect puzzles or exploration to take a role in this one. Combat is gory and largely satisfying, and is well paced throughout the levels.
The most important gameplay elements are souls, as one would expect from the title. Souls work as the in-game currency of sorts, and you get them for killing enemies in battle. Souls are used for everything in this game; buying, upgrading, and repairing equipment, purchasing items, and leveling up. You will want to kill all enemies you meet in this game because souls are so important.
Demon’s Souls is a very unforgiving game, mostly because of how death works. When you die, every single soul you have is gone. Potentially hours worth of souls are stripped away from you. This makes it important to spend your souls as you get them, buying equipment and items that you do not lose when you die. Sadly, the only area you can spend your souls at is the Nexus, your home base of sorts, and this can only be accessed from a few different places in each expansive area.
Luckily for us, you do get a second chance. When you die, you are taken back to the beginning of the level and placed into spirit form. Spirit form plays the same as your alive, or physical form, but with one exception; you have less HP. If you want to get all those souls back you lost, you must regain your physical form. There are a few ways to do this; one is to fight your way back to where you died and touch your bloodstain, from the beginning of the level, with every single enemy respawned. Another is to defeat a boss, and the final is to kill another player using PvP (more on this later). If you die in spirit form before getting back to physical form, you are out of luck. Those hard earned souls are gone forever, and once again, the cycle repeats itself. It's at times frustrating, but it makes your sucesses that much more rewarding.
And trust me, you will be dying, and the game does not hide that. The first boss you face is in the tutorial, and he kills you in one hit, setting the tone for what is a difficult gameplay experience. Thankfully, the game never feels cheap or gimmicky in it’s difficulty, and you’ll find that overtime you do notice yourself getting better, and cruising through areas that were once difficult. (As a side note, if there was one disappointing boss in this game, it was the end boss, who was surprisingly easy.)
The game itself is divided into 5 large areas, each with several levels, all generally linear in nature, with some side paths sprinkled in for good measure. All the levels are connected in each area, so you could theoretically play through each area’s levels in one go. The levels are the game’s only checkpoints (these checkpoints are also areas you can access the Nexus from), and they often start and stop at bosses. At any time in the game you can access any level you’ve already played through. With a few exceptions, you can choose to play through the areas in whatever order you would like, although note that areas four and five, for example, are harder than one and two, with enemies acting more aggressively and utilizing rolling and other quick movements that they often forgo in the early game. Each area does do a good job of introducing new enemies to overcome, and each boss looks and feels different.
One problem with the soul system is that at times it makes grinding a bit necessary. When I get stuck on one particularly hard level and am at a point where I can’t really sustain any soul gaining, I often go to an earlier level and play through it a few times to get some extra souls for things like repairing equipment. This doesn’t work very quickly though, as earlier levels do not have nearly the soul rewards that later levels do, and you’ll find that the cost of equipment, leveling, etc., quickly ramps up. And did I mention that you can’t sell items? Luckily though, these instances of grinding were relatively short and few.
This all leads me to arguably the most innovative aspect of Demon’s Souls; the online play. As long as you are connected to the internet with your PS3, you will be playing online. Wispy ghostlike figures that represent other players dot in and out of your sight as you traverse the level, letting you know that you are not alone in your plight.
There are several crucial online implementations that help you progress through the game. The simplest and arguably most vital is the message system. With the simple press of the select button you can leave a message that other players can see. It’s a great way to leave hints. You’ll find your game littered with little hints saying things like “trap ahead,” “enemy on the right,” “treasure down this way,” or “blunt weapons work well on next enemy.” It’s a creative little way to have a small, in game guide of sorts. You can also rate the messages left behind by other players. Messages that get highly rated will result in health benefits for the player who wrote them, a nice little touch.
Much has been made about the bloodstain aspect of online play. Throughout a level you will encounter bloodstains of other players who died. By touching these bloodstains, you can see how they died. While cool in theory, in practice it is largely underwhelming. You can only see the player who died, not what enemies or trap might have killed them, leaving you just as clueless as before you checked the bloodstain out.
The other online gameplay elements are more grandiose in scale. Once you clear the first level, you gain the ability to summon spirit form players to help you, or be summoned as a spirit form to help another player who is in physical form. Help that player defeat a boss, and you get your physical body back.
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/4475/demonssoulscoopsummonon.jpg
The most intriguing and sinister online gameplay element is the PvP. After clearing through a little bit of the game, you gain the ability to force yourself into another players game as a spirit, or Black Phantom. Kill the host player and you gain your body back, die, and you will lose a level from your highest stat.
This all changes the world tendency either towards white or black. Killing other players as a Black Phantom, or dying in game changes the area you are in to black, causing enemies to become more difficult, but more rewarding. Defeating demon bosses or Black Phantoms in battle changes the world tendency to white, which has the opposite effect. These changes can also open up new areas, foes, and friends. Your own character also has a tendency, and it is gained much the same, with different tendencies affecting the bonuses you get from certain items.
As you can imagine, once you get far enough into the game where other players can assassinate you, the intensity ratchets up another level. Trust me when I say though, that it is much easier to play this game online. Playing it offline means you get no tips or co-op, and that really ups the difficulty. The tradeoff for online play is worth it.
As a side note, trophies are largely going to come overtime; defeating bosses is the major source of trophies, as well as maxing out weapons and finding all items. You will, however, have to play through the game more than once to get them all.
All-in-all this is a fun, challenging gameplay experience. With satisfying combat, expansive areas, and imaginative boss fights, this is a game worthy of purchase. It’s incredibly intense and at times frustrating, but right when you feel you have gotten to your breaking point, you succeed. There are some other flaws to note; one notable “fluke” of sorts is that, while it’s easy for you to fall to your death in this game, enemies do not sustain any damage from falling from large heights, at least from what I saw, which can make fighting high off the ground a bit frustrating.
If by some inhuman chance you find the game easy on your first play through, don’t worry, it gets harder every time you beat it. But I honestly don’t think that too many people will come to that conclusion with this game. What you get out the game on it’s second play through depends on how much you enjoy it; there isn’t really anything new to do.
I don’t know what else to say about this game. It is a terribly difficult experience, and yet, when you finally defeat that boss that has killed you 10 times in a row, the sense of accomplishment is amazing. This game is an incredible source of both the sting of pain and the rush of triumph, all wrapped up in a fittingly dark, dreary world. A throwback to older games; what with it’s lack of cut scenes, checkpoints, and continues, Demon’s Souls is not for the faint of heart, but if you are up for the challenge, it is one of the most infuriating, engrossing, and masochistically enjoyable games of this generation. Thumbs up.
Pros:
- Fun combat
- Very atmospheric
- Innovative, enjoyable online elements
Cons:
- Minor gameplay faults (see; falling, soul grinding).
- Little to no story for an RPG. at least not original.
- Very unforgiving, difficult game
My Rating-
9/10
Intro-
Every now and then, a game comes along where you feel like the developers tried to make sure everyone could beat it and feel good about themselves because they completed it. A game where the journey to the end was not one filled with challenge and tense moments, but rather with easy gameplay that was accessible to everyone. Demon’s Souls is NOT that game.
Every now and then, a game comes along that brutally kicks your ass, assaults you relentlessly, and forgoes a lot of the modern devices of video games that some claim make them easier. Demon’s Souls IS that game.
Graphics-
The game is fairly good looking, albeit it’s not a pretty game. It’s dark, filed with lots of gray and brown, and does not generally feel very uplifting at all. The game runs off of the Havoc Engine, which provides solid physics (albeit, sometimes a little weird. Try walking into a corpse, they’ll flail all over the place). Levels feature lots of destructible items, although they usually feel slapped on, as they rarely offer tactical or logistical advantage.
The rest of the graphics are solid but unspectacular; frame rate is smooth, animations are solid, and there is nothing wrong with them, they just don’t necessarily wow you.
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/3032/exprimevaldemongraphics.png
Audio-
The soundtrack is rather subtle in scale as well, often foregoing music entirely for simple sound effects. While music generally does a good job ramping up the excitement of boss fights, throughout much of each level you will find that there is no music to be heard. But that’s ok, because, in a way, it helps create this taut sense of loneliness, and the ghastly sounds of howling rabid dogs down the dark hallway you are making your way through or your feet clanking against a stone corridor are all well done and add to the atmosphere. Sadly, the voice acting in this game feels uninspired for the most part, although, luckily for us, there isn’t much of it to go around. Part of that is because there isn’t much story either; greedy king abuses soul power to awaken demons. That’s it. It’s typical fantasy fare.
Gameplay-
As labeled, Demon’s Souls is an action-RPG, and, surprisingly, has a decidedly “western” feel to it. Played from a third-person perspective in real time, Demon’s Souls is a dark, gritty, no-holds barred adventure of a game.
And when I say dark, I mean dark. Before you even begin gameplay, the game literally asks you to turn the brightness setting way down. I did this at first, but found that the game got too dark for me, and I was fumbling around a bit too much. Use discretion; it’s no fun to pass some lever you were supposed to pull or stumble off a cliff to your death because you couldn’t see (more on death later). I ended up setting the brightness back to it’s default setting, the game is plenty dark.
Enemies themselves range from generic to rather nightmarish in appearance. There are some pretty imaginative bosses to fight, some of them huge in scale (think Shadow of Colossus). They all add to the somewhat “gothic” feel of the game, and the dark atmosphere.
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/2171/demonssoulsbosstongue.jpg
The brief tutorial does an okay job of introducing you to the most vital of controls, R1 is right hand use (like swing your weapon), R2 is heavy swing of said item, R3 is enemy lock-on, square is use item, circle is dash, or, with analog input, a roll, and triangle allows you to switch around how you wield your weapon between one or two hands. The two left triggers provide wielding your left handed item (L1), and parrying (L2). The right stick grants you power over the camera, allowing you to move it as you please, and the control pad toggles through items and weapons. While the main gist of combat feels very responsive and fluid, I have some issues. You can only scroll through items in one order, and you can have five equipped at a time. For instance, if “sticky white stuff” (lol, an actual item) is your fifth item, you must scroll using the control pad to it. If you accidentally pass it, you must go all the way through your items again. While this sounds rather small in scale, you’ll quickly learn that in this game, every second counts. Otherwise though, you’ll find the controls are simple to grasp. Sadly, the tutorial does skip over some of them, most notably the message system (more on this later).
There are ten classes in Demon’s Souls to play as, and they all play relatively differently. They’re generally the class archetypes we come to expect from this genre; knight, barbarian, thief, etc. Stats are relatively familiar too, featuring things like Strength (which can increase damage, for instance), and Luck (which can increase item drop rates), among others. Interestingly enough, any class can use any combination of weapons, as long as you have the right stats, and some of the weapons vary pretty wildly in terms of how they play. This makes gameplay a constantly evolving ordeal. You can go big and slow, quick and agile, whatever you want, which is good, because you may want to mix up your style if you find yourself stuck.
Your hit points are suitably represented by a HP bar. There is also a MP bar for magic and miracles, which are spells you can use during the game. Certain stats determine how many you can know at once. There is also a stamina bar, which depletes when running, blocking, rolling, or attacking. It’s important to keep some stamina in the tank at all times, if it gets empty, you can no longer successfully block or use heavy attacks. It does recharge quickly. Items you carry also add to your overall weight, the limit of which is determined by your Strength. The game, fortunately, includes a bank of sorts at the Nexus for items, and it has unlimited space.
Protip: Keep your shield up at all times. You never know what may be lurking around the corner
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/2429/demonssoulsshieldup.jpg
It’s hard to compare Demon’s Souls to any game out there, it has some similarities to Monster Hunter, without the over-exaggeration of combat, and at times also bares some ties to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. It’s combat oriented; don’t expect puzzles or exploration to take a role in this one. Combat is gory and largely satisfying, and is well paced throughout the levels.
The most important gameplay elements are souls, as one would expect from the title. Souls work as the in-game currency of sorts, and you get them for killing enemies in battle. Souls are used for everything in this game; buying, upgrading, and repairing equipment, purchasing items, and leveling up. You will want to kill all enemies you meet in this game because souls are so important.
Demon’s Souls is a very unforgiving game, mostly because of how death works. When you die, every single soul you have is gone. Potentially hours worth of souls are stripped away from you. This makes it important to spend your souls as you get them, buying equipment and items that you do not lose when you die. Sadly, the only area you can spend your souls at is the Nexus, your home base of sorts, and this can only be accessed from a few different places in each expansive area.
Luckily for us, you do get a second chance. When you die, you are taken back to the beginning of the level and placed into spirit form. Spirit form plays the same as your alive, or physical form, but with one exception; you have less HP. If you want to get all those souls back you lost, you must regain your physical form. There are a few ways to do this; one is to fight your way back to where you died and touch your bloodstain, from the beginning of the level, with every single enemy respawned. Another is to defeat a boss, and the final is to kill another player using PvP (more on this later). If you die in spirit form before getting back to physical form, you are out of luck. Those hard earned souls are gone forever, and once again, the cycle repeats itself. It's at times frustrating, but it makes your sucesses that much more rewarding.
And trust me, you will be dying, and the game does not hide that. The first boss you face is in the tutorial, and he kills you in one hit, setting the tone for what is a difficult gameplay experience. Thankfully, the game never feels cheap or gimmicky in it’s difficulty, and you’ll find that overtime you do notice yourself getting better, and cruising through areas that were once difficult. (As a side note, if there was one disappointing boss in this game, it was the end boss, who was surprisingly easy.)
The game itself is divided into 5 large areas, each with several levels, all generally linear in nature, with some side paths sprinkled in for good measure. All the levels are connected in each area, so you could theoretically play through each area’s levels in one go. The levels are the game’s only checkpoints (these checkpoints are also areas you can access the Nexus from), and they often start and stop at bosses. At any time in the game you can access any level you’ve already played through. With a few exceptions, you can choose to play through the areas in whatever order you would like, although note that areas four and five, for example, are harder than one and two, with enemies acting more aggressively and utilizing rolling and other quick movements that they often forgo in the early game. Each area does do a good job of introducing new enemies to overcome, and each boss looks and feels different.
One problem with the soul system is that at times it makes grinding a bit necessary. When I get stuck on one particularly hard level and am at a point where I can’t really sustain any soul gaining, I often go to an earlier level and play through it a few times to get some extra souls for things like repairing equipment. This doesn’t work very quickly though, as earlier levels do not have nearly the soul rewards that later levels do, and you’ll find that the cost of equipment, leveling, etc., quickly ramps up. And did I mention that you can’t sell items? Luckily though, these instances of grinding were relatively short and few.
This all leads me to arguably the most innovative aspect of Demon’s Souls; the online play. As long as you are connected to the internet with your PS3, you will be playing online. Wispy ghostlike figures that represent other players dot in and out of your sight as you traverse the level, letting you know that you are not alone in your plight.
There are several crucial online implementations that help you progress through the game. The simplest and arguably most vital is the message system. With the simple press of the select button you can leave a message that other players can see. It’s a great way to leave hints. You’ll find your game littered with little hints saying things like “trap ahead,” “enemy on the right,” “treasure down this way,” or “blunt weapons work well on next enemy.” It’s a creative little way to have a small, in game guide of sorts. You can also rate the messages left behind by other players. Messages that get highly rated will result in health benefits for the player who wrote them, a nice little touch.
Much has been made about the bloodstain aspect of online play. Throughout a level you will encounter bloodstains of other players who died. By touching these bloodstains, you can see how they died. While cool in theory, in practice it is largely underwhelming. You can only see the player who died, not what enemies or trap might have killed them, leaving you just as clueless as before you checked the bloodstain out.
The other online gameplay elements are more grandiose in scale. Once you clear the first level, you gain the ability to summon spirit form players to help you, or be summoned as a spirit form to help another player who is in physical form. Help that player defeat a boss, and you get your physical body back.
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/4475/demonssoulscoopsummonon.jpg
The most intriguing and sinister online gameplay element is the PvP. After clearing through a little bit of the game, you gain the ability to force yourself into another players game as a spirit, or Black Phantom. Kill the host player and you gain your body back, die, and you will lose a level from your highest stat.
This all changes the world tendency either towards white or black. Killing other players as a Black Phantom, or dying in game changes the area you are in to black, causing enemies to become more difficult, but more rewarding. Defeating demon bosses or Black Phantoms in battle changes the world tendency to white, which has the opposite effect. These changes can also open up new areas, foes, and friends. Your own character also has a tendency, and it is gained much the same, with different tendencies affecting the bonuses you get from certain items.
As you can imagine, once you get far enough into the game where other players can assassinate you, the intensity ratchets up another level. Trust me when I say though, that it is much easier to play this game online. Playing it offline means you get no tips or co-op, and that really ups the difficulty. The tradeoff for online play is worth it.
As a side note, trophies are largely going to come overtime; defeating bosses is the major source of trophies, as well as maxing out weapons and finding all items. You will, however, have to play through the game more than once to get them all.
All-in-all this is a fun, challenging gameplay experience. With satisfying combat, expansive areas, and imaginative boss fights, this is a game worthy of purchase. It’s incredibly intense and at times frustrating, but right when you feel you have gotten to your breaking point, you succeed. There are some other flaws to note; one notable “fluke” of sorts is that, while it’s easy for you to fall to your death in this game, enemies do not sustain any damage from falling from large heights, at least from what I saw, which can make fighting high off the ground a bit frustrating.
If by some inhuman chance you find the game easy on your first play through, don’t worry, it gets harder every time you beat it. But I honestly don’t think that too many people will come to that conclusion with this game. What you get out the game on it’s second play through depends on how much you enjoy it; there isn’t really anything new to do.
I don’t know what else to say about this game. It is a terribly difficult experience, and yet, when you finally defeat that boss that has killed you 10 times in a row, the sense of accomplishment is amazing. This game is an incredible source of both the sting of pain and the rush of triumph, all wrapped up in a fittingly dark, dreary world. A throwback to older games; what with it’s lack of cut scenes, checkpoints, and continues, Demon’s Souls is not for the faint of heart, but if you are up for the challenge, it is one of the most infuriating, engrossing, and masochistically enjoyable games of this generation. Thumbs up.
Pros:
- Fun combat
- Very atmospheric
- Innovative, enjoyable online elements
Cons:
- Minor gameplay faults (see; falling, soul grinding).
- Little to no story for an RPG. at least not original.
- Very unforgiving, difficult game
My Rating-
9/10